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Very touchy these days, eh. A good discussion about what Microsoft should do or shouldn’t do in their pursuit of mobile computing market.

Seriously, I am a bit sick of iOS and Android these days. I hope to see afresh operating systems emerging anytime soon.

This is really sad. First, TV Guide, then followed by BusinessWeek. Newsweekly era is now officially over. These magazines used to have an enormous media stature in 60s/70s. People used to run to newsstands every week to get them and find out what are the most pressing issues around the world, around the US. If a person or a topic was featured on the cover, it’s heavenly respected. But glory days are all over now. Did internet and its companion devices wipe these papers out from public’s interest? Random online ads killed traditional news ads?

Hope these giant publishers continue to produce quality contents, perhaps by forging allies with that merciless internet. I believe well-crafted, polished articles can still win groundless rants of personal (or even professional in that case) blogs!

Intriguing article by Friedman. For me, I do wonder why Russians would spy on Americans at this point in time. They will only find failed lobbyists, collapsed Wall Street, and some leaked oil.

Thomas L. Friedman

Look, if you had told me that we had just arrested 11 Finns who were spying on our schools, then I’d really have felt good — since Finland’s public schools always score at the top of the world education tables. If you had told me that 11 Singaporeans were arrested spying on how our government works, then I’d really have felt good — since Singapore has one of the cleanest and well-run bureaucracies in the world. If you had told me that 11 Hong Kong Chinese had been arrested studying how we regulate our financial markets, then I’d really have felt good — since that is something Hong Kong excels at. And if you had told me that 11 South Koreans were arrested studying our high-speed bandwidth penetration, then I’d really have felt good — because we’ve been lagging them for a long time.

Dan Frommer of BusinessInsider says people shouldn’t worry about iPhone 4 antenna issues. iPhone 4 signal issues fueled this week when consumer reports announced “they can’t recommend iPhone 4 to buyers”. Ironically, in a separate report, they also chose iPhone 4 as the best smartphone on the planet at this moment.

We are living in a strange world. I agree with Dan that this is a non-critical issue as what happened to Toyota or BP. :-) Despite the strong calls for penalty, eh I mean, recall, I think there are still other viable yet effective options for Apple - e.g. giving away free bumperss!!

It is now official. Mobile is the future. These companies - Zynga, Fring, Square, EA - have done a phenomenal job so far in creating a new wave of incredible apps for mobile phones! Nobody could’ve expected we would spend so much time on these little apps. A completely new economy with healthy consumers spending, new jobs and new lifestyles have emerged with the birth of an App universe.

Zynga:

The Farmville phenomenon has become so pervasive that Mozilla offered a Firefox update solely because players complained the browser kept crashing on them during gameplay.

Zynga makes money by charging for virtual goods. Once gamers are hooked, they’re more likely to pay for items like tractors, fuel, and animals. The company reportedly brings in $1 million in revenue daily, mostly from such transactions.

Mike Verdu, Zynga’s Senior Vice President of Games imagines Farmville will one day be localized, so users in one country can trade region-exclusive items with users in another country, giving the app yet another dimension of gameplay.

“People want all the goodies that they’ve come to expect from the PC,” says Jake Levant, Fring’s VP of marketing. “There’s no reason why they shouldn’t get that and more from a mobile phone.”

Quite an insightful post with thorough, perspicuous explanation of how multitasking works in new iOS4. It might not be 100% gold master apple reference guide, but definitely is still a place for you to start if you wanna get your hands on multitasking/fast app-switching in your apps.


Oliver:

Adding fast app switching and multitasking support is quite easy since for the most part you don’t need to do anything. But you WILL have to review the contents of your app delegate methods to see which code has to be moved into one of the other delegate methods now.

Wunderman:

Right now it’s hype and buzz more than reality. There are just not that many people with iPhones in their pockets or iPads in their hands to consume this advertising.

Image via Wired

Kin is now dead as wood. RIP.

Yes literally, it’s still on sales in US but Microsoft has just pulled out its plans to launch Kin in Europe and Asia. Due to anemic sales and some disastrous industry feedbacks, Microsoft is now merging Kin with its Windows Phone 7 teams.

Poor Robert Bach. He couldn’t save his job and now his little brainchild.

There’s nothing wrong with absorbing information quickly and in bits and pieces. We’ve always skimmed newspapers more than we’ve read them, and we routinely run our eyes over books and magazines to get the gist of a piece of writing and decide whether it warrants more thorough reading. The ability to scan and browse is as important as the ability to read deeply and think attentively. The problem is that skimming is becoming our dominant mode of thought. Once a means to an end, a way to identify information for further study, it’s becoming an end in itself—our preferred method of both learning and analysis.